GM Tesla Charging Delayed

At this point, it is safe to say that GM will not meet its goal of having their cars open to Tesla charging by Spring 2024. The last day of spring astronomically was a few days ago. Q2 ends in a couple of days. In a previous post, I had mentioned that InsideEVs reported the following,

GM’s Supercharger Access Plan Is Still On Schedule, Despite Tesla’s Layoffs

“We plan to stick to the timeline that we previously announced, and that’s kind of all I can say,” Sanaz Marbley, director of global strategic technology communications at GM, told InsideEVs

I confirmed that the original timeline said that access would open up in spring of 2024.

“I think spring 2024 is accurate,” she said. 

GM Authority reported having received the following from General Motors recently.

“Thanks so much for reaching out. The Supercharger network is not yet open to GM customers,” GM Director of Strategic Technology Communications Sanaz Marbley told GM Authority. “We are working as quickly as possible to open up access to the Supercharger Network for our customers, and delivering a seamless charging experience is our priority. GM continues to expand charging infrastructure throughout North America, with GM drivers currently having access to more than 195,000 chargers. We believe that access to charging is the best way to serve our customers and grow the EV market.”

I’ve not seen a new timeline announced. That said, I’m declined to be critical of GM. Recent events of Tesla may have had disruptive effects. Musk laid off the entire Super Charger team. I cannot independently verify the results of that action, Brandon Flasche’s report of consequences in the aftermath including those that needed to contact the Super Charger team “getting bounced e-mails with references to reach out to someone else” sound like something that could result in delays for projects.

Ford, which has access to Super Charging, still has demand much larger than supply for the Tesla adapters. Presently, there are a couple of Super Charger adapters on the market that could be used. But I can’t recommend them for a couple of reasons (though I will talk about them in a Future post or two).

Tesla’s charger ToS states that third party adapters are prohibited for use at their chargers. But the odd advantage that the third-party adapters have over the Tesla made ones is that they are available! The two adapters are the A2Z Typhoon and the Lectron Vortex. I have in hand the Vortex and tested the connection on a v3 Super Charger (though no charging session was initiated). It was extremely difficult to remove! It took me about 20 minutes to figure out how to get it off. After some quick searching, I found that this is a common challenge, and came across a few reports of users abandoning their adapters because they could not remove them. I did reach out to Lectron about this and they replied with instructions on removing the adapter. They key parts of that to know are to keep the adapter connected to the car, apply pressure pushing the NACS adapter in the direction of the super charger (as though you were pushing it in further), press the NACS release lever on the adapter, then pull the NACS out. I’ve not gone back to test this procedure for fear of it getting stuck again. But I am going to try it with a “dumb” NACS adapter (If it gets stuck, at least I’ll not have to leave the adapter behind). I may also try out a Typhoon and report on hem later.


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